California Department Of Employment Development

Think it's bad losing your job in the middle of hard times? Try calling the state for help. In January, with the unemployment rate nearing 6%, nearly 12.6 million calls were placed to the state's toll-free phone number to apply for unemployment insurance benefits. But more than three-fifths never got through. Frank Hartzell knows the problem all too well. A laid-off Mendocino County social services worker, he tried calling morning and afternoon, 45 times in December.

California's moribund construction and real estate industries helped push the state unemployment rate to 6.8% in May, its highest level in nearly five years. The state Employment Development Department reported Friday that joblessness in May rose six-tenths of a percentage point from the previous month and was a dramatic 1.5 percentage points higher than in May 2007. And the outlook is likely to get worse for California -- at least for the rest of the year, experts said.

State officials are blaming a software glitch for sending 64,000 tax forms containing Social Security numbers and income information to the wrong addresses. The information was mailed out by the Employment Development Department. Consumer advocates said the error could expose the intended recipients to identity theft.

The Obama administration has asked California to explain how furloughs for state workers are affecting the state's ability to meet an escalating demand for unemployment insurance benefits and services to millions of jobless people. A regional administrator at the Labor Department this week wrote to the director of the California Employment Development Department, asking him to demonstrate that no decline in the federally financed unemployment insurance program "will occur as the result of this statewide action."

California's job-creation engine remained in cruise control in May, producing a net gain of 17,600 jobs, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday. The modest increase, slightly below the revised gain of 18,300 in April and 21,000 in March, suggests that the state's economy continues to grow at a steady but unspectacular pace, analysts said.

After upsetting labor unions by favoring corporate interests this year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday appointed a Democrat and longtime labor leader to manage the sprawling bureaucracy of the Employment Development Department. Patrick W. Henning -- son of legendary labor activist Jack Henning, a one-time appointee of President John F. Kennedy -- becomes director of the department as it faces criticism that it is a recalcitrant, inept bureaucracy. The $12.

The mounting frustration of a three-week job search led to a hopeful three-hour wait for Wanda Santelmann on Monday morning at the state Employment Development Department's San Fernando office. The 41-year-old Van Nuys woman was one of hundreds who packed the office's lobby to apply for positions at the Wal-Mart that will open in late May at the Panorama Mall.

Weekly protests at the Employment Development Department office in Compton have stopped now that Sacramento has assured local leaders--in writing--that it will not close the office. At least, not soon. Rallied by Lynwood's mayor and City Council members, protesters ranging from high school students to NAACP representatives defended the center week after week against feared cutbacks resulting from a reduction in the statewide system.